Making the case for Palestinian self-determination

What We’re Reading

Occupation/Human rights

Palestinians are mired in a one or two-state debate that leapfrogs the need for a process of decolonization and reparations, argue Al-Shabaka Policy Analysts Nadia Hijab and Ingrid Jaradat Gassner. The authors compare different frameworks of analysis and conclude the anti-apartheid framework is most strategic in furthering Palestinian goals in the absence of a near-term political settlement.

An IDF brigade commander shot a Palestinian teen who threw a rock at his jeep, while the boy was running away, and then left him bleeding on the road. Initially, the colonel claimed his life was in danger. With each subsequent interrogation, the story changed.

Israeli settlements

“At a meeting last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his cabinet that Israel would adopt a new policy for settlement expansion to mollify the US administration,” writes Mitchell Plitnick. “Netanyahu’s announcement may be intended to create the framework for settlement expansion in the Trump era.”

Settler violence on the Sabbath is not uncommon in the West Bank: Israeli civilians feel emboldened to attack Palestinians, knowing that law enforcement will refrain from taking serious action until the following week.

US-Israel relations

“Israeli officials’ public praise for the [US] attack [on Syria] contrasts sharply with their privately expressed skepticism that Washington has carefully thought through its next steps in Syria,” write Amos Harel.

“Cutting US financial aid to the PA would send the wrong message to Palestinians, Israelis and Americans who have a strong national security interest in bolstering the PA as a stable, viable governing body that closely cooperates with Israel in fighting terrorism,” Americans for Peace Now’s Ori Nir tells The Forward.

Israeli politics

“With the prospect for early elections in Israel, the Zionist Camp must decide whether to join forces with left-wing Meretz and its liberal-humanist ideology or tag along with Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid,” writes Akiva Eldar.